One of my clients for my Walkshops made a great point the other day. He is in the midst of experiencing Benjamin Harrison's struggle with executing Major Change during his military duty in the Civil War. My client said that he was shocked that Harrison had to contend with such long periods of inactivity, dull routine, and daily mundane events. It showed, my client concluded, the importance of … [Read more...]
August 27, 2013 by
August 21, 2013 by
Quiet leadership. Like me, when you see this phrase you think of doing things behind the scenes with little or no fanfare, maybe even in secret. Do you engage in quiet leadership? When is it the right time to do so? When is it the absolute wrong time? What does your attitude toward quiet leadership suggest about your nature as a leader? These questions came to my mind when writing a recent book … [Read more...]
August 20, 2013 by
Can you express time in distance? What is the equivalent in distance, for example, of 136 years? I’ll use history to suggest one possible answer. If you look at the United States and the American experience in 1877 and ask yourself how far we’ve come by 2013, I’d say a good argument can be made for this answer—about 15 inches, roughly one full step. Not much more. I measured my distance … [Read more...]
August 20, 2013 by
Entry #21 – The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell What do you do when you start reading a book and, unless something drastically changes, you know you aren't going to like it? That's the question that I had to answer with The Wordy Shipmates. And no, nothing drastically changed. I ended where I began—with an intense dislike of this work. But still, some good came out of it. Hang on and we'll … [Read more...]
August 19, 2013 by
The sounds of late summer. Crickets in the weeds. A garden with long, tired vines. A few inches of brown at the base of corn stalks. A stray brown leaf from the locust and birch trees. Inevitable. … [Read more...]
August 15, 2013 by
Permit me to use a term that might nauseate a few people and fascinate others. Brand. There is a link between the brand and the history. The history of an entity is a key source of its brand. But it's not enough to know that. You also need to know that the brand, like the history which informs it, can be divided into two parts. One part is the external brand, or that attitude and understanding … [Read more...]
August 14, 2013 by
I've found that a cancer specialist had a medical practice in downtown Indianapolis in the summer of 1865. Nearly twenty years later, Dr. Edward Howard was still in business. His practice had grown to include his son as a fellow cancer specialist. Oh, and one more thing--Dr. Howard emphasized that his treatments were non-invasive. Can you imagine? Cancer, non-invasive, specialist, years of … [Read more...]
August 13, 2013 by
Race in America. We're poorly served by two extremes who want to do opposite things that make it all worse. One side wants to sweep it under the rug. That's the portion of the political Right or, loosely, a part of 21st century conservatism that wants to say that race relations are so much improved that we really don't need to think about it any longer. That attitude and approach helps produce … [Read more...]
July 18, 2013 by
I'm reading a biography of Robert E. Lee right now. The section I completed a few days ago pertained to the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848. Lee is a captain of engineers in the conflict, though he quickly earns promotion. The point that was clearest to me was that you can sense the potential in this event for Lee's subsequent decision to leave the U.S. Army in 1861. In the Mexican War, Lee is … [Read more...]
July 17, 2013 by
11 people participated in the inaugural offering of Walkshop II. The topic was Major Change and leadership, just like in Walkshop I, but in this iteration we explored how leadership intersects with the execution of Major Change, not the processing of what to do about Major Change. Again, Benjamin Harrison in the Civil War is the historical theme. But in Walkshop II our day was June 13, 1865, the … [Read more...]
